I love this quote. It really hit me when I read this. I have realized within the past few years I have really tried to kick self-doubt to the curb. I have started creating for myself--rather than for the validation of others. It is so much more rewarding. When I first started sharing my creativity on this blog, I would create for others. Meaning--I would create things with other people in mind. Will people like this idea? Will people want to make this? Will people use this? When different projects or creations did not get the response I was looking for--then I felt DEEP disappointment. It was awful.
What I should have been asking myself is--
Do I like this idea?
Would I put this in my own home?
Would I use this?
I would have saved myself a lot of disappointment. You can not please everyone. Not everyone will understand your creativity or relate to it. That's the great thing about creativity--it is your own. We should treat it with care--we should not let other people decide whether or not our ideas, projects, and creations are good enough. We should decide that for ourselves.
Of course saying this and doing it are two different things. It is hard to separate the two. We will always wonder if people like our ideas--which is okay. But we should not feel like we have failed or be disappointed when people may not give you the response or validation you are looking for. We should be proud of the fact that we are creative and we are using that creativity! What I have learned from doing this, is chances are if you love what you created and it really moves you--then chances are someone else is going to feel the same way about it!
So in order to really test my self-doubt I have completely gone out of my comfort zone.
The other day, I just decided I was going to make a quilt without a design in mind. I was just going to start sewing things together and see what happens. I wanted to try my hand at improv sewing. This is way out of my comfort zone because I ALWAYS have a design in my head, on paper, or an the computer screen. I have never created a quilt--with no design written out. So this was a big leap for me.
Here is the process--sorry for the very bad photos--these are all from my phone. I was not taking these photos for posting reasons--I took them so I could see the quilt from a different perspective. So throughout the process I would step back and take a picture. I would then study the picture and see what I thought. Well, as I was going through all the pictures, I thought it would be fun to show the process of this quilt:
Wow, what a process!
Here it is all sewn together:
Now that I have finished the top--I can honestly tell you how I felt about the whole process.
I loved improv sewing. It was very satisfying and freeing. It felt nice to just sit at my sewing machine and sew random bits together and get this really awesome design. It wasn't all easy---I had to figure out how to get all the pieces to fit together. That did take a little thinking, but it wasn't too bad.
Do I love how this turned out?
YES. I actually really love this. It is so out of my comfort zone, and way more modern than I am used to, but I love that about it. Now I have to figure out how to quilt this!
Talk to you soon,
